Thursday, October 18, 2012

A Little Rain Must Fall

So I'm back!
I was keeping to a pretty regular schedule here, and then I got the plague. The "I-think-I'd-rather-die-please-just-bury-me" kind, where you can't even enjoy guiltlessly watching awful television with incredibly unwashed hair.

I'll spare you gory details, but it was really really unpleasant. I'm still slightly afraid to eat meals. And at least personally, I'm a wuss about these kinds of things, and it's one of my least favorite things on Earth. Not that anyone likes to be any kind of sick. Just sayin'.

You might say it's in keeping with the weekend I had. I might have said that too, at least at first. A fun trip got bogged out and then completely dismantled by extreme illness (which I'd later catch, of course.)

And I could complain about missing out on bluffs and fall colors. I could complain about how it was supposed to be a carefree fun time for me and someone I really care about, and it was mostly an exercise in worst- case scenario.

And you know what? It's ok to complain. It's ok to be upset when things don't work out. That's something I have to remember too. Not that I didn't let myself have the "cry in the dark" moment. I did.

But there was time by the fire, and goofy conversations. There was lazy mornings and late nights with rain falling on the roof. There was fall colors, even if they passed by in watercolor brush strokes on the way home....

You know how people always say that all that matters is who you're with? And you know how you go "oh my God, that's a cliche."

Sometimes it's not. Or it always is, but sometimes it applies.
Because when you look back, and you realize that even in the "worst case scenario", you weren't alone and you had someone to talk to, someone to laugh with even? And when you realize that you survived it and came out even better for it? When your stomach hurt like hell because you were laughing? When you realized that yeah, things suck right now in a lot of ways, but we got this? And when situations like the one I ran into recently happen, it strips down the barriers, you know? No time for fronts. Care out in the open, because there's no other way to be about it.

I keep thinking about it because I wasn't the one who reached this conclusion right away. I just wanted it fixed. I wanted it to be easy and fun because I thought that's what would be best. And ok, being rained out and getting awfully sick, that's really not ideal. Would I take it back though? I don't know. I hate seeing anyone in pain, and I hate being in pain. There's things I'm sure we'd have enjoyed that we didn't get to. But it's not always about that. And that's a lesson we've all learned before but have to keep learning. The hard stuff can be the good stuff too. So I'm a little bit glad.